Every Morning
by Lindsey2
Summary: a complicated kind of love...this fanfic may save me, please review, it would mean a lot to me standalone


:this fanfic means a lot to me, I have poured my heart out in Monica's POV. This helps the constant writer's block; I think you will understand why I have one. Please review, if you want me to come back. I will anyway, but right now I don't have the confidence.

**Every Morning**

Every morning, when she woke up, her first thought was _him_. She knew it was wrong but she couldn't help it. The sweetness of his smile, the way his eyes lit up when he laughed, just every single detail of him played out through her mind everyday. 

Was this what love felt like? She wondered. She was only 18, had never had a boyfriend before. The closest contact she'd had with a boy before she met _him _was when Roy Gublick had inadvertently touched her breast while attaching a corsage to her high school prom dress.

When she met _him_, it had been on a visit to her brother Ross at NYU 12 months ago. Ross' vague phone call to her from campus had been something about, "Got a cool roommate…you should visit me…think about joining up with us next year…"

Monica had rolled her eyes and agreed to visit her over-excited geeky older brother. Of course she never knew that the visit was going to have an affect on her ideas for the rest of her life. 

It was 8.00 on a Saturday morning and she'd walked into her brother's campus, found his room and walked in…only to discover that her brother wasn't there. Instead, she'd found another young college student sitting on his bottom bunk plucking the strings of his tennis racquet, quietly cursing to himself.

"Um…hi," Monica greeted the student, a blush creeping into her cheeks as she realised that she was intruding.

The student looked up, his bright blue eyes flashing at her in curiosity. "Hey," he replied, smiling. "You must be Monica." He smoothed back a lock of his brown, wavy hair and stood up. "I've heard a lot about you from Ross."

"Um…yeah," Monica smiled timidly back at him. "You must be my brother's roommate."

"Everyone calls me Chandler, but if you want to call me 'my brother's roommate' then feel free to go ahead and call me that." The student said, grinning at her.

Monica laughed. "Chandler is fine."

"Well, I wouldn't call it 'fine'," Chandler said, grimacing, "I'd call it the complete opposite of that." He sat back down on his bed and picked up his racquet again. "This thing," he continued, gesturing to the piece of equipment, "deserves to be in a museum. It's old and useless."

"Don't let Ross hear that!" Monica commented, "I doubt he would take kindly to that description of his favourite building."

"Yeah…he's a 'character' your brother, isn't he?"

The conversation had worn on, to the point where Monica had forgotten why she was in the room in the first place. When Ross had entered the room nearly a whole hour later, she didn't even notice him.

Their friendship had blossomed in a way beyond than Monica had expected. She'd assumed that Chandler would not want to be associated with someone like her. He was out of her league socially; he had experienced life a _lot _more. She was the innocent high school senior; he was the college freshman who, by the age of 14, had already woken up on embankments after a heavy session on the drink with his friends the previous night. At the age of 14, Monica was going to bed at 10.00.

As Monica made more frequent visits to NYU, the excuse to her parents that she was spending 'quality time' with their favourite child, she visited the bars late at night with Chandler. After, they sat up all night on his bed, talking about life in general. They would be whispered in their discussions, so as to not disturb Ross' peaceful snoring in the bunk above.

On one occasion, Monica asked Chandler why he liked her friendship so much. He just smiled and said, "Because you're normal."

"What do you mean?"

"You take life as it comes," he explained, "and you're a girl ready to be corrupted and that's a bonus!" This made them both laugh. 

He did anything for her, if she was upset about something, he would lift her back up again. His constant array of jokes immediately put the smile back on her face. In turn, he talked to her about his fears on loneliness but, at the same time, his unwillingness to commit. She tried to give him the best advice she could, trying not to let the pain show in her eyes that she could give him everything he needed, if given the chance.

Her friend Rachel told her she was just going through a 'phase', that she only liked Chandler because he was the first guy who had ever given her a proper 'respect' and paid attention to her.

"You wait until you're _really _in love," she told Monica, "it's the most wonderful feeling in the world."

Monica listened to her advice, and reluctantly agreed. She continued to spend time with Chandler, but put her feelings for him to the back of her head. Eventually, she convinced herself that the feelings were gone forever, and Chandler was her best friend and nothing more.

Until…

Chandler had confessed to Monica months before that he had a girlfriend. A girl he had been dating for three years but had recently broken up with because he was 'bored'. The pain of knowing he had just made a huge mistake hurt him more than anything. He gave Monica her first definition of love.

"I'm back with her again," he confessed, "knowing what I know now, that I was only ever in love with one woman is so painful, because by breaking up with her I've screwed it all up. Being in love makes you feel safe, like you're wrapped up in cotton wool…but yet send you temporarily insane all at the same time. I'm lucky she's let me back into her life, but she wants to take it slow. I'll wait around for her forever if I have to."

Monica's heart ripped in two. She gave Chandler the support he needed, but inside she hurt. All the time. His definition of love only made Monica more convinced that she was in love with him. It didn't matter what Rachel said – that you can't fall in love with the first guy you meet without being with other guys first – this was real.

She could never tell him though. He meant too much to her as a friend to risk changing everything. They could tell each other anything, but in a relationship that could all change. She had seen it happen to Ross and Rachel in High School. They met, they became friends, then they dated…and almost screwed their friendship up when they broke up. They're still talking, but did Monica want to risk the closeness with Chandler that Ross and Rachel no longer feel they can have?

The only option to her now was to go out there and look for the second best thing. To love what she can have and not what she can't have.

For now though, she would wake up every morning and think of Chandler Bing in a way she wasn't supposed to. Maybe one day it will go away, but right now she didn't care. She was allowed to be in love with him if she wanted to.

**The End**

It's pretty bad but Monica's gut-wrenching feelings towards Chandler are what I'm feeling to someone else right now. It helped me anyway, and I hope you enjoyed it!


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